Word Association
by The Songbirds Are Singing
Summary: Harry knows he's different to the other children in his class. Here he thinks about it and wishes he had someone to love him.


**A/N: This is a fic about Harry when he was a child, reflecting on just how different his life is to his classmates'. Implied child abuse and neglect, and a lot of angst from Harry. **

Word association was Harry's absolute favourite game at school. He wasn't very good at science, or music, and he didn't even try to join in in PE, because most of the other children just laughed at him. But word association, part of literacy, he knew how to do. Normally, the word was something like 'summer', or a feeling like 'happy' or 'sad' or 'angry'. Harry was good at those, especially the feelings ones. One time, they'd done 'scared', and his teacher had told him he was the best in the class. Harry's least favourite one so far had been 'friends', because he didn't have very many, and Dudley was always teasing him about it. He didn't really mind: he liked the boy he sat next to in class, Tom, and at lunchtime he sat next to Lucy, and they were both really nice. Sometimes him and Lucy played with her Princess Top Trumps. Harry didn't like the princesses, because Dudley always told him princesses were for stupid girls (even though one of Harry's two friends in the whole world was a girl, and he liked her a lot, because she didn't laugh at him when he fell over in PE, and she had really pretty red hair),but he thought the princes were really cool: he always imagined one day being a hero like they were, and everybody loving him and not wanting to do things like push him over in the playground or steal his lunch so he was hungry for days, because when they stole his lunch, they stole his lunchbox, so Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would shout and shout and shout at him, and not let him have any food. Harry liked Tom because Tom was teased a lot as well, because he had darker skin than everyone else, and he couldn't read well. Harry could read well at all either, because Aunt Petunia never read his reading books with him every night, like she did with Dudley, and that was why they sat with each other, because then they could get special help together. The teacher had tried to make him take a test- which Harry didn't like, because Dudley said tests were dumb and hard, even though Harry thought they were quite easy when they didn't have words in them- to see if he was dyslexic (Harry really didn't know what that meant, but he knew it was what Tom was, and it was why he couldn't read very well), but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia wouldn't sign the form, and they told him to tell the teacher it got lost.

After every game of word association, they had to draw a picture. When they did 'friends', he drew him and Tom doing maths (Tom was really good at maths), and him and Lucy playing princess Top Trumps, and when they did 'summer', he drew a sun, then lots of cats, because he spent a lot of the summer at Mrs Figg's house. She never really spoke to him, so it was quite lonely, and all the cats scratched him a lot, but at least Dudley wasn't there to hit him, like he usually was. When they did 'happy', Harry drew the flying motorbike, but when they did 'sad', he just coloured the whole page in green. When they did 'scared', he drew the cupboard and a man shouting. When the teacher asked what it was, he said "the cupboard under the stairs", and she nodded, and then she asked him if the shouting man was a Bad Guy, so he nodded, even though he thought she probably meant a Bad Guy from a film (Harry had never seen a film, but sometimes he watched Dudley watching them through the air vent in his cupboard, because he could just see part of the TV from it, even though Dudley usually sat in front of it. He listened to them all, and he liked the one with the lions in, because the music was awesome. He liked to sing along, but only so quietly that no one could hear him). Uncle Vernon always told him that him and Aunt Petunia were kind for taking him in when his drunk parents killed themselves in a car crash, so he figured they couldn't be bad. Even so, when Uncle Vernon shouted at him, and waved his fists around like he'd drawn in the picture, he scared him, so he drew it in the picture. Uncle Vernon also told him never to tell the teachers that he slept in the Cupboard Under the Stairs, and that sometimes he didn't get food, and they shouted at him, and Dudley got nice things and he never, ever did. He said it was his own fault for being a freak, and they were doing it for his own good, but he couldn't tell the teachers about freaks, because then they'd take him away from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who were only helping him, so he couldn't tell them about the Cupboard, or the no eating, or the shouting, or the no-nice-things, either.

Today's word association word was his least favourite one they'd ever done: 'family'. At first, he didn't think anything of it, because he knew Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia and Dudley were his family, and his home was with them at 4 Privet Drive. But then the teacher asked them to put up their hands with words, and he normally could think of lots, but today nothing came into his mind. One girl put up her hand and said "home", but the way she said it wasn't how Harry would have said it. She said it like it was a lovely thing, like it was something she liked a whole lot. When Harry thought of home, he thought of the Cupboard Under the Stairs, and he didn't like that at all (even though he had named all the spiders and given them stories, and he drew pictures in the sawdust from the stairs, and his bed might be too small and uncomfortable, but children in orphanages didn't always have bed, Aunt Petunia told him, so he should "count himself lucky"). Then a boy said "mummy and daddy", and Harry put his head down because thinking about that made him sad, and think of green, and he didn't like green. He thought about saying "aunt and uncle", but he thought he should say it the same way the boy had said "mummy and daddy" (like they were the best, best people ever, and really fun and kind and lovely), and he didn't think he could. _I must be normal_, he thought to himself, because it was what he always thought when he thought or said or did things he thought weren't what other children thought or said or did: Uncle Vernon said being normal was more important than anything else ever. He thought about putting up his hand and saying 'normal', but he didn't think it would be right. More words were said: "pet", "sister", "brother", "grandma and grandpa", and someone even said "aunt and uncle", but she said it like it was fun and exciting, not everyday and scary. Eventually, Lucy put up her hand and said "love". The teacher told her it was a lovely idea, and wrote it on the board in big letters. Some of the boys told her she was a baby, and stupid (Dudley said "that's so dumb, baby-baby Lucy", which Harry didn't think was very clever, but he didn't say anything, because otherwise Dudley would hurt him when they got home), but the teacher told them to be quiet in her scary teacher voice (even though Harry thought she was quite nice, really), so they were.

"Why did you choose that word, Lucy?" The teacher asked. Lucy smiled, almost like she hadn't heard the mean boys, and said

"Because I love my family, Miss Brown. I love my sister, and my baby brother, and my doggie, and my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and my house and my bedroom, and I just love all my family!" She looked really, really happy and excited when she'd finished saying it, and Miss Brown was smiling and saying that was all brilliant, and did anyone else have any ideas, or should they start drawing? Harry really didn't want to start drawing, but he smiled anyway when Lucy turned around to look at him, because he thought she was really pretty when she smiled, and if he didn't, she might stop playing Princess Top Trumps with him.

Really, what Lucy had said had made him confused: he knew the word love, but he thought only married people loved each other, or mothers loved their children. He didn't know children could love, and especially not their aunts and uncles and cousins. He didn't think he loved Uncle Vernon, or Aunt Petunia, or Dudley…

A horrible thought crossed his mind: maybe that was why he was a freak! He couldn't love anyone, because if he couldn't love the people he lived with, then surely he didn't know how at all! He must try, he decided. Maybe if he said it, it might make it easier…

That afternoon, in the playground when Aunt Petunia was picking up him and Dudley, he gave it a go.

"I love you, Aunt Petunia." He said, thinking the words felt like the wrong thing to say. For a second, he thought Aunt Petunia looked surprised- and not in a bad way, like how he'd been surprised when Dudley put a huge big worm in his bed-, but then she just swatted at his head and told him not to be soft, it made him girly. Embarrassed, Harry looked at his shoes which had been Dudley's and hurt his feet a lot every time he walked. He knew better than to complain, though. When Dudley waddled over ('waddled' was their word of the week, and Miss Brown said it was how penguins walked, and when she showed them a video and Harry saw how penguins walked, he thought it looked like how Dudley and Uncle Vernon walked), he brandished his family picture in Aunt Petunia's face. It was of him and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but Harry wasn't there. Harry tried to show Aunt Petunia his picture, but she told him to stop wasting time and getting in her way, so he just left it on the bench they were waiting by. When they left, Harry felt sad about leaving it, because he'd worked really hard on it: he thought maybe he could get Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon or Dudley to tell him they loved him if he drew they really nicely in a picture. He was really proud of it, but it couldn't be any good if Aunt Petunia thought it was stupid. With a sigh, Harry squared his shoulders and trotted off after Aunt Petunia and Dudley, who were holding hands and both had a spare one, but he knew better than to take one of them. He wasn't allowed to hold hands, because they didn't want him to infect them with his freakishness. Instead, he let Aunt Petunia grab the back of his rucksack as they crossed the road, like she usually did, then he got into the back of the car, which Dudley got into the front and chose what tape they listened to.

While the car was driving away from the school, Harry looked out of the window and saw Tom with his dad, showing him his picture. His dad grinned, and picked Tom up, spinning him around. The window was open a little bit, so he heard Tom's dad say I love you to Tom. And Harry knew it was probably a bad thing to do, and he knew Tom would probably be upset if he ever found out, but as they drove away, Harry let himself pretend that Tom's dad was his dad, and that Tom's dad had told him, Harry, that he loved him. It felt nice.

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**A/N: Hope you enjoyed. If you liked it, please review to tell me! If you didn't feel free to tell me what I could do better next time, but if it's not constructive, don't. Xx :)**


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